On Tuesday, Conrad Black will have served one year of his six-year sentence for fraud. In this e-mail interview with the Post’s Theresa Tedesco, he describes his new life in a Florida prison.

Q On the eve of your incarceration, you said during our interview that going to jail was “not the end of the world.” Although you did not know what to expect, how would you describe your experience after almost a year?

A There is no violence and everyone tries to make conditions for everyone as decent as possible. There are few abrasions with the regime, and I don’t affront the regulations. It is not difficult to find interesting people to talk to and I have time to read and write.

Q Describe your daily routine in as much detail as possible.

A I get up just after 7 except on the weekends and holidays when it is possible to sleep in. I eat some granola and go to my workplace where I tutor high school-leaving candidates, one-on-one, though sometimes I have to deal with up to four at a time, around my desk, and talk with fellow tutors and other convivial people. I lunch around 11 with friends from education, work on e-mails, play the piano for 30 to 60 minutes, return to my tutoring tasks by 1, return to my unit at 3, deal with more e-mails, rest from 4 to 6, eat dinner in the unit then, and go for a walk in the compound or recreation yard for a couple of hours, drinking coffee well-made by Colombian fellow-residents, and come back into the residence about 8:30, deal with e-mails and whatever, have my shower etc., around midnight, read until 1-1:30 a.m. and go to sleep. On the weekends it is pretty open.

Q How often a week do you have visitors? How long do they stay? What are you able to do when they visit?

A They can come any day except Tuesday and Wednesday. Mine usually come Monday, Thursday, and Friday, stay for about four hours, and we converse and eat from the automatic vending machines. We can sit inside or out. I generally avoid the weekends, as they are rather crowded. Legal visits are different and take place in a closed room and can occur on any day.

Q What books are you reading now? What would you like to read?

A I review a lot of books for publications in Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. The latest was Ken Whyte’s book on W.R. Hearst for the New Criterion. Before that was a book on Murdoch which I reviewed for Tina Brown’s online newspaper, The Daily Beast and British Journalism Review, and before that H.W. Brands’ book on Franklin D. Roosevelt for the National Review. Friends send me books and there is not a bad library here, and I read anything I want, and if not immediately available, I have books sent. At the moment, I specialize in aspects of U.S. history and the legal and custodial system in this country.

Q We know you are giving history and political lectures at Coleman. Can you tell us about how that role came about for you?

A Some fellow residents who had read my Roosevelt book asked that I be accredited for a U.S. history course. After I had run through the whole history of the country (post-Revolution, I don’t know much about colonial history), I was asked to do a current events course. I did this for two 12-week terms also, but am concentrating altogether on tutoring now, as we seem to be getting more and more candidates to deal with and I want to be sure to give them adequate attention. I believe all of my candidates so far have matriculated and the work is quite satisfying.

Q How often are you taking piano lessons? Why the piano?

A It’s more practice than lessons. I refer to an authentic teacher as required, but mainly work from books and just practise pieces that I like, now that I can rudimentarily read music. I always wanted to play the piano, but for some reason, when I was little, my mother didn’t take it seriously. Better late than never.

Q Are you aware of the passage of time? You are clearly current on news events, but how different is the pace in your life?

A The days and weeks tend to resemble each other. Time does go by quickly but a bit imperceptibly. I have quite a lot of e-mail and correspondence and limited telephone traffic. Essentially, I try to keep as well in touch with people and events as possible and I am lucky that many friends outside want to correspond. I psychologically live outside this facility most of the time.

Q Obviously your social circle has changed dramatically, how do you get along with your fellow inmates? Have you learned any hard lessons along the way?

A My circle hasn’t so much changed as expanded. The people I mainly see here are often not unlike people I might know outside. I have also met many interesting people from a variety of backgrounds that were somewhat unfamiliar to me, but are no less interesting for that, and has been quite informative in some ways. I have never had any difficulty getting along with people and I have had no unpleasant encounters here with anyone. These are all people looking forward to leaving and have an interest in not complicating or delaying their return to civil society. There have been no hard lessons.

Q How you stay intellectually stimulated?

A With the help of people here and outside as well as reading, writing, correspondence, sometimes television. In some respects, there is less intrusion here of the irritations of daily life than on the outside.

Q How involved were you in the preparation of the submission to the U.S. Supreme Court?

A I participated in the selection of Miguel Estrada as counsel, and made a few suggestions that were incorporated in the petition, but it was almost entirely his work.

Q David Radler’s testimony is critical to your case, particularly since the U.S. government agreed on appeal that he “perjured” himself on the stand. We talked at length about your former partner’s testimony during and after the trial. How do you feel about the U.S. government’s position regarding Radler now?

A In the summary to the jury, the prosecution said to ignore his testimony, and the jury did in every respect where he was trying to inculpate his former associates. At appeal they accused him of perjury when he said that we were not guilty of what the jury convicted us of.

The U.S. government knowingly extorted perjury in exchange for a soft treatment of his guilt. I think it is a system in collapse and the American Bar Association and many American law schools and experts have targeted many of its deficiencies, including the procedural advantage and lack of restraint of the prosecutors, the dissolution of Constitutional guaranties of defendants’ rights to due process and other assurances of fairness, the dreadful sentencing practices, the lack of political will to change, and the rot in the plea bargaining basis to the whole system. But the U.S. is a sovereign democracy and can set up and change its justice system however it wants. Anyone who looks at my case more than cursorily sees that any guilty findings were unjust, and some of the jurors themselves, in post-trial comments, acknowledged that there was a reasonable doubt. The large and growing volume of supportive messages I receive from many countries and all parts of the United States give me hope that ultimately, we will win, at least in the court of informed and fair opinion, and perhaps even in a court of law also.

Q How do you feel knowing he is now a free man back in Canada?

A He made his decision and double crossed his friends and associates of many years, having committed illegalities himself. He has confessed to lying and stealing, and his prosecution sponsors have declared that he is a perjurer, having extorted and suborned his perjury. My co-defendants and I are innocent of these charges, as he knows. We apparently have different values, and I would not change places with him.

Q The board of directors at Sun Media has been overhauled, as you predicted. Now that those that ousted you, have been ousted themselves, how do you feel about that?

A As you know, the Breeden Special Committee report promised restitution of over $1 billion, demanded prosecution of a “$500 million corporate kleptocaracy” and promised to lead Hollinger International to greater prosperity than ever. They had over four years to do that prior to the financial crisis and all they did was wreck the company while enriching themselves. The Toronto directors with the help of their lawyers and the Ontario judiciary and the Ontario Securities Commission, vacuumed up huge fees, bought themselves fancy toys while the shareholders equity went to zero.

Breeden’s reign gained restitution of less than ten per cent of what was promised, got unjust convictions on barely 1% of what they alleged, and destroyed $2 billion of value in the hands of the public shareholders they claimed to be helping. I arranged an offer of $18 for the stock and $8.44 for Hollinger Inc., and as late as 2005, an offer for Hollinger Inc. for $7.60. The American stock (now Sun-Times), is trading at between two and seven cents, and the Canadian company is worthless.

The people responsible for this commercial miracle have pocketed about $300 million for their spoliation, persecution, and theft, and they have been blessed at each stage by Canadian and American courts and regulators.

As you rightly state, I predicted almost all of this.

Everything I built in Hollinger has been destroyed and perhaps I should simply turn my back on this horror show and turn the proverbial new page. But I simply cannot cease combat until justice prevails. Richard Breeden slunk away and stands condemned; just as he fled as strategic counsel of Fannie Mae and has flamed out in his “shake-down” hedge fund, losing hundreds of millions for his investors. As our counsel said at trial, there have been crimes, but the defendants were the victims of them. I continue to hope that all complicit in this travesty will at one point be exposed. My own narrative of it will be published later this year. I am a historian; I know the facts, and I have no doubt of how it will ultimately be judged.

Q You said in your last interview that going to jail “was not the least bit stigmatizing.” Do you still feel that way? Have friends rallied around you?

A Yes to both questions though no sane person likes to see his name constantly linked to “felon” and “disgraced.” As I have said from the start, serious examination shows that my co-defendants and I did nothing illegal or unethical. Fair minded people reserve judgment or come to sensible conclusions on the facts. Friends stick with their friends.

What malicious or ignorant people have to say about it doesn’t much matter. The U.S. has eight to twelve times as many incarcerated people as other advanced democracies, such as Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. It is well-known that in the US, prosecutors win over 90% of their cases, and that many of the practical Constitutional assurances of defendants’ rights are in disuse. These figures, as Senator Webb of Virginia has recently pointed out, do not mean that the U.S. public is more prone to criminal behaviour than the other nationalities mentioned; it means there is something seriously wrong with the US justice system. Many informed people know that. In my occasional despondent moments, and of course there are some, I remind myself that it is a matter of pride to resist this injustice and eventually to prevail over it, as I will.

Q Has your religious life changed? Do you still attend Mass? Do you pray?

A No, yes, and yes. Conditions here are favourable to religious practice for all denominations.

Q Would you ask for a transfer to a British jail as a last resort if necessary or would you complete your sentence at Coleman if all legal avenues were exhausted?

A It is a conditional question so there is no need to answer it until I know whether the condition of a last resort is met.

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